The word ‘dinosaur’ conjures images of a massive T. rex or a stoic Stegosaurus, both members of a group that died out around 66 million years ago. But what if that wasn’t the case? The new book Flying Dinosaurs: How fearsome reptiles became birds challenges the widely held belief that there are no more dinosaurs … [Read more…]
Last week a new teaser poster for 2015’s Jurassic World (Jurassic Park IV) was released at the Comic-Con event in San Diego, California. It’s a moody looking image featuring a lone and disappointingly featherless Velociraptor (to see what a Velociraptor would really have looked like, click here) It’s caused some ripples of excitement across the … [Read more…]
Do you have backyard chooks? Have you ever looked at them and wondered if they were dinosaurs? New discoveries has found the humble chook, and it’s bird brothers, are closely related to dinosaurs. John Pickrell is the author of Flying Dinosaurs and ABC Central West Presenter Kia Handley spoke with him about this incredible connection
New dinosaur discoveries (such as four-winged Changyuraptor) seem to come nearly every week these days, but few are this exciting. Fossils of a new species from Siberia may be some of the best evidence yet that feathers were not restricted to the carnivorous theropods but were in fact a trait shared by all groups … [Read more…]
The fourth installation of the Jurassic Park movie series, Jurassic World, is being filmed in Hawaii and New Orleans right now, and is due to hit cinemas in June 2015. But the film has courted controversy for a number of reasons, not least for the suggestion that its representations of dinosaurs are inaccurate and … [Read more…]
Source: Information from M Benton (2014), Vertebrate Palaentology, 4th edn, Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell; and personal communication with Professor Mike Benton.
In the early stages of evolving flight, feathered dinosaurs tried an interesting experiment: they developed four wings. These small dinosaurs – such as Microraptor, Anchiornis and Xiaotingia – had long flight feathers on their hind limbs as well as their fore limbs, and they had long bony tails, similarly replete with large feathers. It appears … [Read more…]
Archaeopteryx, the ‘first bird’, has fascinated people since the first mostly complete specimen was dug out of a quarry in Bavaria in 1861. Along with a number of other dinosaurs and early birds, researchers have now been able to look at the microstructural features of fossilised feathers of the animal, and determine that its … [Read more…]
Epidexipteryx hui China, Mid- to Late Jurassic (152–168 million years ago), described 2008 This odd pigeon-sized dinosaur found in China’s Inner Mongolia Province had a downy covering of fuzz for insulation and four long, ribbon-like feathers that emerged from its tail and were probably used for display. Weirder still were Epidexipteryx’s incredibly long fingers – … [Read more…]
Gigantoraptor erlianensis Mongolia, Late Cretaceous (80–95 million years ago), described 2007 This species was discovered accidentally by Xu Xing while he was shooting a TV show in Inner Mongolia in 2005. Filming had to stop because he was so excited. The largest member of the parrot-beaked oviraptorosaur group – at 8 metres long and 4 … [Read more…]